Episode 268: The 10 AI Marketing Shifts Every Small Business Must Understand in 2026

You optimize your content for SEO. You distribute your content for AEO.

Some of the misconceptions, I think that they're dangerous for their business. One is that all local searches are being done on AI platforms now. Super dangerous when 85% plus are still done on Google.

One of the biggest misconceptions I want to point out is this: oh, I don't need to worry about that right now. The evidence I would give of yes, you absolutely do need to worry about it is, you know, how fast it's being adopted.

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses podcast. I'm Ken Tucker from Changescape Web, and today, as usual, I'm joined by my fellow guides, Paul Barthel from Changescape, Jeff Steck from TopMark Marketing Systems, and Ian Cantle from Outsource Marketing. And together we are going to—

Pump you up. There you go.

So today we are going to be talking about some of the hottest AI-driven marketing topics right now in early 2026, not just surface-level trends, but the real shifts that are changing how marketing's working. So AI isn't just changing marketing, it's really kind of rewriting the rules. So in this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses, we're going to break down the biggest AI-driven trends, uh, and what business owners must know, uh, right now to stay competitive. You know, from AI agents and answer engine optimization to speed to lead and authority building, this is going to be your roadmap to winning in an AI-first world. So let's dive in. Paul, I'm going to start with you. What's the biggest misconception that small business owners have about AI in marketing right now?

If they don't need it.

Okay.

I mean, there's a lot of small businesses that, oh, I don't need that. That's not going to affect me. But aside from that, they think it's just another tool, and it is and it isn't. It certainly started out that way, but now it's become like an infrastructure. It's helping you write content, which everyone knows, but if you use AI within a CRM, it helps you respond to leads. It can help you qualify prospects. It can help you run marketing campaigns and email campaigns, and it can help you optimize performance for different campaigns. So that's what I mean. It's, it's kind of becoming an infrastructure that your marketing system is built on. And so your, your business is gonna— whether you like it or not, your business is gonna be built on top of this AI infrastructure. And if you're not using it, if you don't think it applies to your business and your competitors do, you're gonna lose.

Yeah, I mean, every marketing tool on the planet right now has some AI features built into it. So if you're using the same tools as your competitors and they're just using the simple basic features that are given to them by AI and you're not using them at all, you are at risk of falling behind. Now, they may not be using them smartly or wisely, But yeah, like you said, Paul, it's really kind of an infrastructure issue anymore, or really even an operating system. So I think that's a huge shift that everybody needs to get a hold of. We've talked about, you know, in this episode, I mean, in this show quite a bit about how low the adoption rate is for small businesses using a customer relationship management or CRM system.

Yeah.

With the shift that's going on, I don't honestly— for most small businesses, if maybe all small businesses, I think that's a luxury you can no longer afford to have, not using a CRM.

So yeah, I had a call with one of our clients this morning, and it's just— they just have things that have built up over 20 years, and we're kind of trying to untangle that, that mess, but And part of it is the nature of what they do, but it's everything they do almost is a manual process. And that's what we're trying to work through and automate right now.

Yeah.

And this is not a small business by any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah, absolutely.

The bigger the business, the bigger the problems, right?

Sometimes.

Yeah. Well, and you know, even You know, just put yourself in the situation, you know, and think about your own email inbox, how many emails you get on a daily basis. Just using some AI tools and, you know, that are getting smarter. I mean, you could always have done it with filters, but that takes a lot more extra work. You know, now a lot of email platforms are giving you AI tools to help you identify and manage high priority, or, you know, not, you know, junk. They're not junk email, but they're emails that really don't demand your attention and can be set aside and maybe never even important to get to. And so even just simple operational things like that can make a huge difference. Jeff, let's shift over to another—

Before we do, Ken, can I jump in? Because as I was going through the list of questions you were going to be asking, some of the misconceptions I think that I hear a lot right now. And I want to just steer our viewers and listeners away from these because they're dangerous for their business. One is that all local searches are being done on AI platforms now. Super dangerous when 85% plus, like we talked about last week, are still done on Google, right? That the future is AI, but you'd be foolish and harmful to your business if you believe that. Myth. And then the other misconception is that a small business owner asking ChatGPT or one of the other tools to help them develop a content plan, a marketing plan, will always be far less strategic, helpful to the business than an expert in the field using an AI tool to help them develop the plan. And so I think I see a lot of— we've talked about the mushy middle before. I think that's just another misconception right now that like it levels the playing field. It doesn't. Like your competitors who, who have an expert marketing person, like just say SEO, and an expert SEO person leveraging AI in the business are going to always outperform you trying to use a ChatGPT tool without the expertise.

Yeah, I think it's important to know that You know, if you— I mean, everything that you do to be found in the AI searches, which are starting to happen more and more on Google. I mean, Ian, you're absolutely right. Google is still king.

But guess what? That helps you be found in Google.

So just— so do it. You know, I mean, it's actually an extra thing. It's future-proofing yourself, but it's also helping you to increase your visibility. on the platform that has dominated for a couple of decades. So, yeah.

And before, this is gonna be a bridge into the question I think you're about to ask me, but before we go there, I think one of the biggest misconceptions I wanna point out is this head in the sand. Oh, I don't need to worry about that right now. I don't need that right now. I think the evidence I would give of, yes, you absolutely do need to worry about it, think about it, use it, talk to somebody who can help you with it, is how fast it's being adopted, how pervasive it is. I expect to go to the supermarket, pick up a carton of milk, and have it say, now with AI on it.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just everywhere. It's exploding everywhere you see it. Now, is it being overhyped a little bit? Probably. It's the new and improved, right? But look at where it's come in the 3-plus years that ChatGPT has been out. We're going to pivot to that in this next question. It's just evolving at light-year speed. It's huge. And to say, oh, I don't need to think about that, I don't need to pay attention to it— is it being overhyped? Maybe a little bit. Is there going to be a big shakeout? Probably. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be tracking it and figuring out how to leverage it. Because going back to that old saying, you won't be replaced by AI, you'll be replaced by somebody using AI.

And just to be clear, because this always comes up with us for some reason, I feel like you guys think I'm saying don't invest in AI. That is—

No, I'm not saying that.

No, no, but I want our listeners to hear because it sounds that way. But like, we, we use AI a ton to help our clients. And we know that we have to get our clients ranking on AI search. But the— like, Jeff, I hear way more In conversations with people, business owners, way more buzz about like, maybe I can ditch my AI or my agency, or I don't have to worry about Google anymore. Right. And that's the kind of stuff that I want to keep getting the message out there about is because the message about you got to adopt AI is huge. And it's absolutely true. But that is overbearing right now. And the other message is almost nonexistent, which I think is to the detriment of most small businesses.

Yeah, balance. Wax on, wax off.

Yeah, I mean, sadly, so many small businesses are always looking for a way to cut their marketing budgets because they think it's a cost-saving measure. It's a gutting of your investment strategy to grow your business. So don't think about how you can— I mean, obviously, if you've got things that aren't working, Cut those out. But, you know, your, your marketing budget needs to be a healthy amount to be able to develop a predictable system that is going to generate the quality of leads that you need. And, you know, so don't think that you can just willy-nilly go cut everything and start— that's, that's a really risky proposition. I mean, that's like, that's like deciding that you're going to live in a house where somebody just decided that they're going to remove the foundation, but that's okay because it still sits on the ground. You know, it'll be okay. The wood touching the, you know, the wet earth.

Yeah. What

What could go wrong?

Yeah, what could go wrong? All right, Jeff, let's talk about a concept that maybe a lot of our listeners don't really know. Maybe they've heard the term, probably haven't. What is agentic AI and why should small businesses care about that?

Yeah, and this is where I want to tie it back to the how fast things are moving. I mean, I think by now everyone can spell AI, but most people, they probably think that, oh, it's ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT all the time. ChatGPT is great. Well, there are other LLMs, and there's a whole lot of discussion about, you know, which is the best right now. They're rapidly moving. But where the real hot effort is right now is moving beyond just a single LLM or conversing in chat and getting information back, having it do research, having it help you formulate emails or marketing collateral, whatever. It's building agents. So that's what agentic AI is. It's building an agent to do a specific task for you. And this is huge because, you know, something that, you know, you used to maybe have to have, you know, 10 hours a week devoted to could now be done in 1 or 2, or something you used to have to have 3 other people involved with, now maybe you can do it on your own once those agents are built. An AI agent is not looking at a specific tool or specific platform, but it's looking at how do we piece multiple things together to accomplish a task. Sometimes it is done within the same platform, like, ChatGPT has an agent mode. Sometimes it's done by mixing and matching the right platforms to get the job done. And it's also connecting into other platforms that you use, for instance, your CRM, your phone system, your calendar scheduler. So now an agent, you know, can be the one answering the phone, conversing with the, you know, prospective customer, answering their questions, warming them up, and then moving toward the, would you like to schedule an appointment? Or, you know, would you like me to connect you with a human, whatever the right call to action is. So the agents are multiple pieces of a process, a workflow, working together under a coordinated umbrella. It could be one tool, it could be multiple tools, but used to implement a specific job function or task. And that's a game changer because all of a sudden, all these things that used to take a lot of people or a lot of hours to implement, You just go off and tell the agent to work on it. It goes whir and it comes back and goes, here you go. It's huge. And that's where the emphasis and the focus is on AI development right now. It's not how can I use ChatGPT to generate a blog article? It's how can I build an agent that does research, that writes the article, that submits it to human in the loop, submits it to me for review, and when I say good, goes and automatically posts it on the website, generates a social media post, and posts those out on social media. Those are the kinds of things when you move into agentic flows that you can— excuse me— that you can do.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's see. So, Ian, here's your favorite topic. You're going to get to talk about this again. How is AI changing search and online visibility? So you've got the floor now. Take it away.

Yeah, like, this is one of the biggest shifts we're seeing as far as people behavior, right? And again, we haven't seen a giant shift yet. We've seen probably a 10% shift of people looking for local businesses using AI versus Google, right? Which is a pretty significant shift. But it's not like the, the, you know, we lost Atlantis or anything like that yet. But people are still Googling. So that's important. But it is changing how people are searching for things for general knowledge for sure. Like we see that with ChatGPT all the time. If people are looking for, you know, how do I do this, it's fantastic at walking you through like how, how to do some complex task in, you know, QuickBooks, or, you know, how do I create this formula in, you know, Google Sheets or Excel, like everybody's— most people are using that now because it gives you very concise answers to very specific questions. But I think the biggest shift that we are watching for, some have heralded too soon, and I'm not talking about us, I'm just talking about the industry in general.

You lost your audio.

Yeah, I'm, I've been able to hear him.

Okay, Ken's blocking me.

Jeff's audio too, so maybe it's my problem.

I can hear Jeff. I'll just keep talking. So, so, uh, yeah, so we could still hear each other, Ken. So I don't know. So, uh, yeah, like platforms, the most common is ChatGPT for sure as far as AI. Uh, Google AI, right? Gemini results. Uh, voice assistants, Perplexity is still around. Like there's a bunch of platforms that people are using to search and everybody kind of has their favorite. And Jeff's talked about how they keep, you know, hopping over each other as far as features and capabilities. And so, yeah, it's really the key to me in all of this. And I think to most of us, and it's always the base question. For strategic marketers is where are my ideal clients, patients, or customers looking for me, right? And if, if the lion's share of them are looking for you on an AI platform, and, and I would be as specific as that because they're all different, and you're not there, then you're at a big, you know, you're at a big disadvantage to the competitor that does show up there. Again, the searches are pretty low as far as local businesses go, but it's only growing and it's going to continue And as Ken said, if, if you do the things that you're supposed to do for Google and the things that you're supposed to do for AI, there's tons of crossover in there and you actually help both. So yeah, you need to be asking yourself, you know, am I ranking number 1 on Google? I think that's still a relevant question. It hasn't disappeared. But I think now in addition to that, you need to start asking, am I showing up on AI search platforms? And if so, how?

Yeah.

You know, am I number one? Because it doesn't always just give you one answer. Sometimes it gives you multiple lists. And, and am I coming up consistently on that platform? And then what about the other platforms? So a recent test that a gentleman I know did where he's a marketing consultant and he actually did a test to see, did the AI search pull up the same result every single time. And what he found, this was a local, it was in the dental industry, that was the specific industry. And did the same result come up every time?

Nope.

It was, it was kind of like ChatGPT was trying to spread the love across a whole bunch of different businesses. But what does that tell you as a marketer and as a, as a business owner is that, wow, that makes it really challenging to know, other than the stuff that we keep talking about, that, that the industry keeps talking about, how am I going to really help myself show up in these searches? And that's the question you need to be asking. And you need to start doing those levers that are going to help you because your competitors are doing them. And eventually, I think the AI searches will start to get to where Google has been, which is, you know, this, this is the best search result. And so we're going to keep presenting it.

So yeah, if I could jump on that and amplify a couple of things you said, plus your favorite hot topic. Yeah, Google's still super important. If I'm looking for an emergency plumber, I'm probably not going to have a long, lengthy conversation with one of the chat— ChatGPT, Claude. But I think one of the things that AIs have done is they have enabled those longer, deeper conversations. So you still want to be on Google, you still want to be on the quick hit, high intent, searches. But then that stuff that you talked about, you know, AI is helping SEO and SEO is helping AI. When you start thinking in terms of people having deeper conversations with their— your AI as they would with you, that changes how you look at content and how you build things out online. And then you get that AI content that's going to help in the interactions and the intent that comes from it's going to help SEO and vice versa. So I think it's fundamentally changing the way people are using the technology as well. And that's a, that's a key point that's often overlooked. And, and if you're the one who's, who's there, you know, being able to not just provide quick answers but to be able to provide deeper conversations, then you've got the EEAT that we're always talking about for Google SEO as well. So, um, yeah, that change in behavior I think is a pretty interesting phenomenon.

You know, what I think is really interesting is that, uh, What we're going to be seeing here very quickly, if we haven't already started to see it a little bit, is this is going to separate the poser SEO people from the people who really get it. Because AI is actually— the AI-driven search is actually forcing better SEO discipline than we've had to see in a very long time. And because— and we've had to add several things to that to be effective at achieving both AI-driven search and the traditional, you know, showing up in the Google searches and whatnot.

Oh, I can't hear you.

Oh, now Ken's cutting out.

But you're back now. It must be something under—

It says I'm unstable for some reason.

We always knew that.

I don't know.

What do you think? So anyway, yeah, so this is kind of a good segue to dig a little bit deeper into, you know, what kind of one of the big things about AI-driven search. So Paul, I'm going to shift over to you. What is this concept of answer engine optimization or AEO, and why does that matter for AI-driven search?

All right, and then I'll try not to go down a rabbit hole. So Ian said earlier that there's a lot of crossover, and there is, but I look at it from the standpoint that you optimize your content for SEO, you distribute your content for AEO. And we talked about that last week a little bit.

Um, say that again, that's an important point.

Excuse me, you optimize your content for SEO, you distribute your content for AEO, because these AI search engines, if you want to call them that, they don't crawl the web the way Google does. I'm not going to go into that, but it's— they're going to find you outside of your own properties. So one thing that has become extremely important again when it comes to the LLMs and the AI platforms is structured data schema. It's— I mean, it used to not move the needle that much. Now it's extremely important again. And that, that helps AEO understand your content and trust it and recommend it. Because AEO will get you chosen, whereas SEO will get you found. And that's 2 different things. Because when someone's having a conversation, if you will, with say ChatGPT, it focuses on providing authoritative answers from what it deems are authoritative sites and authoritative platforms, which is completely different. Well, not completely. It's different. It's different from the way that search engines find and present search results. And I—

oh, go ahead.

See, it's kind of— I don't want to write a novel about this, but I mean, it's, it's a complex topic. It, it really is.

Yeah. So you, you talked about distribution. What do you mean by that? Can you give our listeners an idea of What? Yeah, whatever.

Because, and, and we talked about this last week as well, that it used to be good enough that you could take your— you could take some content, put it on your website, put it on your Facebook, your social media platforms, and you were good. And you could build authority that way. Google has changed how they determine trustworthiness and authority, and it's, it's that was largely driven by the, the AI platforms— ChatGPT, Claude, whatever, whatever one you want to use— is that they want to find your content outside your platforms that, that you control. They want to see your content on platforms that you do not control, because anyone can say good things about themselves on their own website, but they want to see your content on authoritative platforms that you don't really control.

So does that mean you should post your own videos on YouTube or you should be found in other—

Not if it's your YouTube channel. I mean, you can, yes, you should, but you also want your videos posted on video hosting platforms that you don't control.

And on sites and on websites that you don't control?

Exactly.

So, so like, what about press releases? Are press releases, you know, press releases for a little while back, You know, 5, 6 years ago were kind of a hot thing for SEO. Maybe it was a little bit longer than that, but are press releases the kind of site you're talking about as well?

Yeah, because the issue with press releases in the past with a lot of the press release platforms is that it was good to have your content there and Google could find it, but from an SEO perspective, They did not pass that link authority back to your website. And that's kind of where the difference is between SEO and AEO, is that AEO sees that as a good thing. Whether or not it passes that link authority, if you will, back to your website is irrelevant to AEO. They say, here's content we— and brand mentions is what I'm talking about here, really. Here's this content about this business, about this brand on a press release site that is not passing that authority back to the website, but it's on this authoritative platform. So it must be good content.

Yeah. So just to kind of break it down, I mean, so authority still matters in terms of these other websites, you know, and, and so that kind of the big shift I think is You know, it used to just be, can you get an inbound link from an authoritative website in the eyes of the search engines? You know, meaning, you know, we've got a domain authority scale of 1 to 100, you know, and if you can get something that's 50 or higher, that's gold, right? You know, and so now what you're saying, if I understand, is, you know, even if you don't get that link, the fact that that high authority website in the eyes of the platforms, the search engines and And also the AI LLMs, that if they just mention your brand, that's still got massive value from an AEO perspective and therefore from an SEO perspective.

Yeah. And the backlinks are more important. This is kind of an oversimplification, but the backlinks to your website are more important to Google than they are to the LLMs. I'm not saying they're irrelevant when it comes to the LLMs, but Google will put more authority on that backlink than the LLMs will.

Okay, cool. So we might, uh, I mean, Jeff, Ian, you guys have anything to add or add to that?

Or—

yeah, okay. We, we may wind up coming back and talking about, you know, some of these things that we've already revisited, just because honestly all of this stuff can and should be intertwined, right, uh, to be the most effective. Uh, Jeff, let's, let's kind of shift gears a little bit and talk about how AI is changing lead generation and conversions?

Yeah, this is an interesting one because you'll get some different views, uh, depending on who you talk to. Um, there are a lot of interesting capabilities that AI brings in in terms of analyzing past behaviors, past histories, and then letting you capitalize on that for making changes to your, your marketing approach, your collateral and material, how you say things on the website. Some people will talk about you know, AI can predict, it can read people's minds, and it can like tell them, you know, what you do in a way that makes them want to respond. And that may be a little further out there. Maybe as you move into agentic, you can start analyzing, you know, speech patterns and things on the fly and start skewing conversations in certain directions. But I think some of the interesting things that happen in terms of lead generation conversions are it can help you analyze datasets. AI is great at analyzing you know, data. So it can help you analyze datasets and look for, for instance, if you download all of your reviews, there are tools that will do that. Download all of your Google reviews, take it into an AI and say, hey, what are the key things in here that people are talking about? What are their key concerns? Now all of a sudden you've got, you know, fertile ground for creating new content that you can put out that will address those and lead people toward, you know, deciding to do business with you. Um, you know, certain amount of identifying intent based on the paths that people take. There's a lot of Privacy issues around the data and what data do you have access to. But being able to use all of the data that's available to you and pull it into a tool where you can do some things that maybe would be very difficult to do before if you're just working off of Excel spreadsheets. But then on the more practical side, the AI is always on, your chatbot on your site's always on, the text messaging connected to an AI is always always on, and it can do things in real time. So you're not losing out because you aren't there to answer the phone because it's after hours and you're closed. Um, you know, you're able to connect and meet people where they are and have a conversation with them and then offer them what they need or refer them to the right place. Um, and to a certain extent, that communication then can be personalized because of, of the history and the things. If you've got people tagged in your CRM, it can pull up the record and say, oh, I see you were here And you bought whatever. How's that working out? You know, there's a lot of things that can come into play when you're, you're using AI where maybe if it was just strictly a piece of program code, you, you know, it's mind-boggling. How would you even do that? Right? But the biggest thing we're coming down to is speed to lead. How can you engage people? How can you meet them where they are, give them what they're looking for, and draw them further down the funnel to connecting with you? And not lose them along the way. Solve those drop-off problems where, where, you know, people don't— didn't get a phone call back, nobody answered the phone, people didn't see what they want on the website. Solve those drop-off problems and keep moving, uh, them down the funnel to where they're actually taking an action. Um, and, you know, back to the, the, you know, the emergency plumber one, you know, if you're the emergency plumber that answers the phone and tell people, yeah, I, I understand your problem, I can get out there in an hour, you've got a huge leg up on the plumber that doesn't answer the phone because they're probably never going to have that conversation, right? That person's moved on. So if you can respond, you can meet people where they are and, you know, move forward, then you're going to win. And AI can sure do a lot to help, but that's you.

So, Jeff, you— the example you gave about the emergency plumber, it sounded like that person actually answered the phone. But, you know, there are a lot of actions—

Well, when I say answering the phone, it could be the AI, right? An AI chat, an AI agent answering the phone.

Yeah.

And then, you know, talk about some of the outcomes that an AI agent like a phone system or a bot help you accomplish on your website specifically, one, to capture a lead and then 2, you know, kind of nurture them down, you know, toward becoming much more likely to become a customer and maybe even eventually becoming a customer.

Yeah, I think it's organized around a couple of things. One is the path that somebody's taking, you're kind of tapping into that. You're not creating a one-size-fits-all path. You know, you're responding, the AI can be responding to what people are asking, you know, again, meeting them where they are and figuring out the right place to take them that will maximize your chance for connecting with them and bringing them in.

Yeah.

bring them in as a, as a hot prospect. Um, and the other one just, just kind of popped out of my head right now. Um, shoot, I had 2 points on that and I just lost the second one.

All right, well, it'll come to me. Yeah, bring it back. You know, we just can't stress enough on this podcast how important speed to lead is. You need to do something to scroll stop Yeah, Jeff. Oh, oh, oh, I know what it was.

The other is, uh, in that related thing you talked about, the form and the website, the AI can help you reduce friction, right? People get to a form and you're asking a whole lot of information, they're less likely to say, oh, I've got to type all that in, I'll just leave. But if they're having a conversation with the AI and it's naturally asking them for the same things, then you've reduced the friction and you're moving them closer to the conversion. them forward in the pipeline.

Yeah, yeah. If you don't believe how important speed delete is, just Google or ask ChatGPT to provide statistics from Harvard Business Review or MIT on how important responding first is to winning the business and the timeframe that you now have to be the one who responds first. Please take this seriously. If you don't, your competitors are going to love you.

So, or just do it and see what the results are. Answer the phone real quick, respond real quick. Yeah, it'll improve your business. Yeah.

You know, the other thing just real quick is, um, I don't know about you guys, but 90% of all phone calls that I get for my business, because we're not a high volume, high transactional volume kind of business, right? 90% of them Or are robocalls— not, not robocalls per se, but they're, they're, they're automated phone calls, probably using ringless voice technology, which is technically an email instead of a voicemail, so it doesn't violate no-call list kind of stuff. But it's all just always saying, guess what, my Google Business Profile hasn't been claimed.

Huh.

Do they even know who they're talking to? I mean, come on, you know, or trying to sell you a water cooler. Using AI to filter out all of the crap that is choking up your phone systems while you're standing on top of a roof or, you know, knee-deep in sewage or whatever it might be, you know, you can't afford that. You've got to start taking this stuff seriously. And if you don't answer the phone, people are going elsewhere. So that's not an option either. Yep. Off my soapbox now.

No, that was a good one.

So, Ian, what role— Jeff talked a little bit about personalization, but what role does personalization really play in AI marketing?

It doesn't. AI plays a role in personalization in marketing, not the other way around.

So I was laughing at you there.

So maybe it goes the other way as well. But personalization has always been super, super important. So what we mean by personalization is, you know, there's been studies out since the early days of marketing to show that it's just like when you meet someone, if you know their name, you're creating a connection. And so just like that, in any kind of communication, If you can personalize it to who they are, what they're interested in, and anything else related to their buyer's journey, you're going to win the game. And so this has been well known as far as raising conversions, success, profit margins, all of that in marketing for years and years and years. What's been super hard though, is, is to make this actually work in a real way. So just to give you an example, most big businesses, you know, I worked in the corporate world for a long time and we were doing this, but, you know, it was only a step in the right direction, meaning we had databases of hundreds of thousands of people and we could segment them into demographic breakdowns. We could segment them into, you know, service of interest or product of interest, that kind of thing. Past purchasing, right? There was all sorts of ways you could segment. And, and so we could prove that if we segmented and communicated in a certain way that resonated with what people were most interested in, and it aligned with who they were, we would improve sales. And, and so what AI has done, especially when you take— again, it's— I want to also differentiate when, when I say AI in this You know, this conversation that we're talking about right now with personalization, I'm not talking about ChatGPT. I'm not talking about Claude. I'm not talking about the large language models. I'm talking about what Paul was talking about, which is AI embedded in your CRM and marketing automation system. So the AI allows you to better segment your lists. It can, it can actually look for patterns within people's buying behaviors, people, people's demographics, just stuff that is very hard to do that you'd need like a data analyst to figure out. It can help you do that super easily because AIs have the power to look at large amounts of data and make it simple, right? Find find the patterns. Platforms like GoHighLevel, which is something I think we all use to some level or or some form of it, that just has so much AI built into it that can do personalization. So what I mean by that in that context is it can personalize emails, right? Not just adding, you know, dear Ken, you know, or hey Ken, that's table stakes. Like, if you're not actually personalizing the person's name at the top of the email as a salutation, like, that's table stakes. You should be doing that. That's just dumb marketing if you're just sending out mass emails with no personalization.

Dear recipient.

Yes, dear person that we hope buys our product. Like, that doesn't work. So you need to tailor the emails. Or the SMS text messages or the DMs or whatever it is you're doing. And the best way to do that is with smart segmentation first. So that, and that could be like tagging people with different tags so that, you know, in the context of like a dentist, you know, oh, they've shown interest in dental implants or Invisalign, these high-value products, then we should be communicating with them consistently if they haven't purchased those. about those high-value products so that they remember us? Because the chances are high that the competitors are already talking to them about those high-value products in some way, maybe not as personalized because you have more data because they're your patient. But it, it really helps with behavior, like helping them feel like the message is resonating with them, because that's the key— understanding your ideal client, understanding who they are, and communicating in a way that matters to them. And, and then it raises conversion rates, produces a far better customer experience, creates stronger relationships between them and your business. And AI within these tools can help turn mass marketing into almost one-to-one conversations at scale. So again, increases relevance, improves conversion rates. Makes scaling possible that was impossible before, and unless you just kept adding people to your business to try to do this stuff. Helps segment the people intelligently, improves customer experience, supports the full customer journey, which I think is really, really important because you can actually communicate in specific ways with how people are interacting with your business before they become your customer, and that's really vital. And then it can strengthen sales. And also follow up, right? And continue to create a smart, you know, repurchasing cycle. So I think there's so much that can be said about it.

Yeah. Yeah. As you mentioned, I love the, you know, the scale aspect. I mean, an AI phone system can actually handle multiple concurrent phone calls with a level of personalization for each and every one of those. An AI-driven chatbot on your website Can have conversations with multiple people who are doing that instead of you having to hire, you know, live agents who can, you know, and making people wait in the queue to be able to start to get answers. So, you know, again, every time you put friction in front of people, you're giving them an out to not do business with you. So, so eliminate those friction points. And, you know, that's one of the brilliant things that AI can do for us.

Can I give another example of, uh, personalization and, um, agents? I think personalization— well, I'll give 2 quick ones. Personalization also comes into play with not just what you say and how you say it, but when you say it. And I think, Ian, you said that the right message at the right time. Here's a low-hanging fruit. Most of the email marketing platforms now have what's called predictive send in them. So if I'm going to send a message out to, you know, pick a a list size, 5,000 people at 10 o'clock in the morning, are 5,000 people in the position to read it at 10 o'clock in the morning? No, some people are at work, some people are sleeping because they work at night, some people, you know, are on vacation. So different people will have a preferred time of when they want to get your email. So wouldn't you want to send the email at the time they're going to get it? So you turn predictive sending on, and over the next 24 hours, it's going to send to each individual person at the optimal time for them to get the email. But the other cool thing, if I take it back to agents where personalization comes in, and again going beyond the hi, you know, bracket, first name bracket, which if we see those is a big tip-off, but think of an agent now that you're sending a, an email about a new product announcement or something, but you can go through and look at their history with you, you can look at their LinkedIn profile, you can look at what they're saying, what they're talking about, and you can write an email, an entire email tuned specifically for them and their concerns and their pain points, talking about how your product addresses them. That's the kind of personalization that we're talking about with AI.

Yeah.

And just to add one thing, like the comment you made about the email sending times, so important, right? Because up till a few years ago, before AI became a real good part of the CRM and marketing automation systems, we would, we would go to studies and we would you know, research studies that were out there that gave us general terms like—

Tuesdays at 10:15.

And, and the social media side is also equally relevant, um, in that the social media tools now that we use to post do include these things where it actually monitors, you know, how people interact with your social media posts. And it's telling you instead of general information about You know, just best time to post on Facebook, which is totally irrelevant to most businesses, right? Because it's using giant businesses in the same scale as small businesses. You know, Coca-Cola versus your local plumber, there's no relevance between the two of them usually. It's really helping in that way too, so that, you know, oh, we lost— Can you use Ken?

We did.

Anyway, so, so just like you were talking about with the email personalization, I think also with the, the socials becoming much better and helpful, more helpful.

Ken's back.

Yeah, I blipped out there. So hopefully our recording is still unstable. Yeah, true. Paul, you talked a little bit about distribution. before, something that I think is, you know, very closely aligned to distribution is multi-format content as well. Talk about, you know, like why video and other, you know, multi-format type content and kind of talk about what the multi-format content types are. Why are they more important than ever? And I think it, you know, it's going to be a great follow-on to what you were talking about before.

Well, where video is concerned, first of all, people prefer it. They prefer to watch— most people prefer to watch a video than read a bunch of text. So that's the number one user experience right there when it comes to video. But AI— and keep in mind, when you do— and this is why things have so fundamentally changed— when you go to Google and you do a search, Google is using AI. Yeah. In the background, it's completely AI-driven. It's just their own proprietary algorithms that they're using. And AI doesn't just read text, it processes it, it understands it, and it can understand video and it can understand audio and it can understand images. Whereas 5, 6 years ago, that was iffy at best. And that's when we talk about multi-format content and distributing your content across multiple platforms and different kinds of content because you have Obviously, you have your blog posts and your press releases that we talked about. They're also called news articles, another term for them. And then you have podcasts, which is audio content generally. And then you have video and you have infographics and you have slideshows, which are static images. And it's all different kinds of content spread across all different kinds of platforms, which gets you brand mentions and Now we're back to trust and authority, and it helps build that. And Google pays attention to what the LLMs are doing, and they have their own called Gemini. So it's— I mean, nothing exists in a silo anymore. And so it, it helps get your, your message out there in a lot of different ways on a lot of different platforms. And like I said, when it comes to video, people prefer it, especially short-form video. It's really big on Facebook. It's big on YouTube.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, people say pictures are worth a thousand words for a reason. You know, images and video content stays more deeply with us in our memory and helps us with our understanding for most people. So that's very important. The other cool thing that I think is happening, you know, and again, this is thanks to TikTok, Really, even though you're not using TikTok, it's influenced the way the tools that you are or should be using are starting to deliver content. And I'm talking specifically social media and video platforms like YouTube, but even LinkedIn is doing this now. It's not delivering— the social platforms aren't delivering content based on who the followers are as much as they are delivering the content to people who they think are interested in it. And if those people show interest in it, then it— why, it substantially broadens the audience. So it targets a small group of people first to say, these people probably are interested in this type of content, let's see how they react. And if they watch it, if they engage with it, if they comment on it, share it, whatever, you know, then you're going to have an opportunity to have that platform get you even more exposure to a lot more of those people who are interested in that content. That's a different level of discoverability from a social platform than we've seen in damn near a decade. So video content is a huge driver behind that. So if you can't win in the pure Google rankings game for the time being, video can be a great way to help get you discovered to start that buyer's journey. you know, to find out, hey, this is something I ought to go check out and go learn more about. So I think that's a—

Can I offer a little bit of a contrarian view in the vein of Ian? First off, I agree video is super important. You should have video. And actually, by the way, video is a great way to start and then you can derive written content from it. But don't ignore the written content because different people will consume information differently, and you want to have something for everyone, right? And especially in this fast-paced world, there is some growing criticism that our attention spans have gotten shorter because of video. So there's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? If, if all you do is pound out video and stuff like that, now you're conditioning people to, to not have to spend the time to go a little deeper and maybe not ever get that deeper experience. So you still want to have the written word, you still want to have something that people can read and say, well, let me think about that for a second. And yeah, I agree with that. Let me keep reading. You, you want to have that connection point as well. Do video, gotta do it. It's gonna be the entry point into a lot of other places like you talked about, but don't, like, like Ian would say, don't ignore traditional Google. Don't ignore traditional, uh, written content either.

Right. Did you really, I think a lot of what we're talking about, you know, even though I'm glad you and Ian are both bringing this up, It's really, these are additive things that you have to do beyond what you traditionally have had to do that has been shifted. You really don't want to walk away from all of the other things that have been working for decades to help you be found online. Written content, you know, the SEO structure of your website, how fast your pages load, all of that kind of, you don't want to ignore and walk away from any of that. So I'm glad you guys are bringing that up. And, you know, when we're talking about multi-format content, I think Paul did talk about press releases and things like that, you know, so we're not telling people don't do written. I'm glad you brought that up, Jeff.

Can I get something that I find actually really amusing, but also deeply fascinating? Because I think we're all like research scientists when it comes to, at least us in the field, right? When it comes to AI, what's happening in AI today versus yesterday.

Yeah.

So I— this was just a little test while we were chatting. I just wanted to see what happened because I've never actually tried this test. So I wanted to see what the LLMs were pulling up for video. So I asked all of them, well, all the main ones, how to change a toilet bowl. And I asked Google Search this as well. Do you know that the only one that pulls up a video and multiple videos is Google Search? Gemini actually created an AI video of a lady ripping out her toilet with this giant wrench. Claude told me to go look, like they all gave me text instructions. But then Claude told me when I asked for a video, it's like, go look on YouTube. So I, so I found that deeply fascinating that like just what we're talking about, video is so powerful. And Especially from a how-to standpoint, and that Google still is the only one that owns that because they own YouTube, right? They, they have a competitive advantage there. But I just thought that was an interesting little test. I'd never thought to look into that. Like, do videos show up in any of these platforms?

You know, that's, that's interesting because I wonder if there's a reason for that. Because like me personally, if I want a how-to video, I'm not gonna go to ChatGPT. I'm gonna go directly to YouTube.

Yeah.

It wouldn't even enter my mind. Well, I mean, I shouldn't say that, but I mean, it's— my first choice for a how-to video is not gonna be Gemini or Claude or ChatGPT. It's gonna be YouTube.

Yeah, but your question would be like, I think a lot of people probably ask the LLMs a question like that. How do I change my toilet bowl? And because maybe you're not thinking I need a video, maybe you just want instructions, but then And then when you see the instructions, you're like, holy cow, there's like 12 steps. Like, I need a video that's gonna walk me through this, right? Some of them actually said, if you take a picture— ChatGPT said, if you take a picture of your toilet bowl, I'll help you figure it out. I thought that was interesting as well.

Yeah. And, you know, having video on social platforms is not discoverable outside of those platforms by and large. You have to search within those platforms to find that specific video content. So, you know, and again, if you're a plumber, are people gonna be searching Facebook or Instagram for a video on how to, you know, how to do that or even diagnose a problem? Probably not. So, all right, Jeff, let's kind of take the AI content You know, we've talked about it. We've talked about the, you know, the distribution. We've talked about the multiple types of content that need to be out there created. What about with all this content? How important is authenticity? Because one of the things that scares the crap out of me is with these AI tools, it's so much easier and faster to create a lot of really bad content.

Yeah.

So can you kind of talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, you're absolutely right to be concerned about that, Ken.

The—

I know time's getting short, so I'll be as quick as possible. Authenticity in your content is your key competitive differentiator. You know, when AI first came out, I kept using the term, well, it's all, it's all trained, you know, not all the AIs are trained on different data, but let's just take one for instance. Since ChatGPT in the early days, it's trained on a big body of work. And if, you know, plumber A in town asks it to write a blog article about changing a toilet bowl, as Ken wants to know, and plumber B across town asks it to write an article about changing a toilet bowl, both plumbers are going to get essentially the same article. They're going to be worded differently. They have a few things that are emphasized more or less, but they're going to get essentially the same article because they're all driven from the same training data. And the fear then was that AI would drive— overreliance on AI would drive us to the mediocre middle. So how do you get around that? You get around that by injecting your own personal experiences, your personal, uh, voice, your watch out for this but you don't have to worry about that, all of those things that make it authentic where you're going back to the EEAT— your expertise, the experiences you can provide, your authority, and your trust come into play. That now is how you're gonna differentiate from the, what, what can be called AI problem. I've got a, a colleague who had a, a great analogy. He said, you know, if I wanted to write up an article about cardiothoracic surgery, I could ask one of the LLMs to do it, and it would write an article that you'd look at and you'd go, wow, that's pretty impressive. But if I gave it to my brother, this is him speaking now, who is a cardiothoracic surgeon, and he'd look at it and go, this is total crap. So you've got to put the human-in-the-loop aspect into it, and the authenticity that only can come from the human adds to it. And you can train the AI to help you do that to some extent, but you still got to make sure it is reflective of you and not like everything else that's out there.

You talk about human-in-the-loop. Explain what that is.

Yeah, so you just don't give an agent— this is especially important as we move into agentic workflows— you just don't give an agent, hey, go write an article, a blog article about, you know, whatever, and post it to my website and just let it do it all and then not even look. You've got to go, and at the right point where it says, hey, I've got a draft ready for you, can you review it for me and make updates, improvements, give me guidance? There's going to be a human in the loop somewhere to make sure the AI is doing the right thing. It's not saying the wrong thing because AIs will still hallucinate. It's gotten better, but there are cases where they will say things that, depending on your business, could get you in trouble. So there needs to be review, there needs to be oversight, and there needs to be validation that feeds back into the training of the AIs as well.

Yeah. And even on the front end, the, you know, before you even— the prompting, you know, has to have better qualification than just write me an article. You've got to say, write me an article and here's why, you know, we're considered to be the top plumber in such and such and point them to, you know, a list of your reviews that that people have talked about or something. Anything that you can do to interject your per— the personality of your business is gonna make it so much better.

Yeah.

And then absolutely on the back end, you absolutely have to review it. So, all right, Ian, let's spend the time you need on this question. Then I'm gonna do rapid fire for the last 3 questions after Ian. So Ian, why is owned content— well, first of all, what is owned content and why is it becoming more important again?

Yeah, my definition of owned content, and I'm— if you guys have a different one, chime in, but is, is really your properties on the internet, which is really your website, right? Your, your website is the only property you own on the internet. You don't own your Google, you don't own your— sorry, your Google Business Profile, don't own your Facebook profile, you don't own citations, all of the different things that can be levers. And so why it's so important is you know, everything from Google search to AI models, where do they get their information from? Right? Like about your business? Well, the primary source is the primary source, which is you. So if your business doesn't have an authoritative website that speaks in a powerful way with all of the right elements that we've, we've talked about, right? You, you, the, the AIs will know nothing about you or very little about you, or less than the competition about you, right? So it behooves you as a business owner to really max out what your website has as far as, you know, what areas do you serve? What services do you— products or services do you provide? Who is your ideal customer? Which industries do you serve? Like, it has to be exhaustive or the AIs just don't have enough to go from. So things like blogs, FAQs, service pages, location pages, schema, we've talked a lot about, right? The backend stuff that educates Google and the AIs on what an article is about. They're just— if you're not doing these things, how on earth? Like, again, I feel there's this disparity between people's perceptions of what AI is and how it works and what it really is and how it works. Just like there's always been a misperception of how Google works. It's not magic. It seems magical, but it's not magic. It has to pull the data from somewhere. And if If, again, if you're not providing it, nobody is. And so your website is your only property that you own. It's just, it's not just for visitors. It's for training Google and the AI search engines, right? You got it. You got to train it.

Yeah.

All right. Rapid fire, guys. So answer these as quickly as possible. And if we need to, we can circle back and talk to them in more depth in an additional episode. But Paul, What, you know, marketing measures, you know, are obviously very important to determine how successful you're being. How is marketing changing in an AI-driven world?

What do you mean? You mean the metrics?

Yeah, the metrics. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

So clicks, impressions, and traffic are less important. And what's more important now is obviously visibility in Google. We don't want to ignore that, but visibility in AI answers, brand authority, trust signals, You know, reviews, that comes mostly from reviews and authority. We've talked about review velocity, speed to lead we talked about earlier. Those are the things that are important because someone can contact your business without ever going to your website. So as important as your website is, don't forget about all these other places where people might be able to find you.

And even though people may not go to your website, your website is powering and supporting everything else that is helping people find you online.

Oh yeah, it is. And you know something Ian said about they pulled from your website, there's a slight caveat there, is that the LLMs do pull from your website once they find your website, but they're probably going to find your website from a platform that is not your website.

Yeah, absolutely. And just real quick for people Review velocity is how frequently you're getting new reviews coming in because new reviews are really super important today more than ever. Reviews older than 3 to 6 months probably don't carry very much weight anymore. Obviously varies from industry to industry based on the total review volume. That's natural for that type of business. But you want to keep getting a good steady stream of reviews. Just because you got 50 reviews 2 years ago and you haven't asked for anything Any— and nobody's decided to write anything about you, that's not helping you anymore.

Let me geek out for one sentence. So velocity technically is magnitude, how many reviews you're getting, but direction. You don't want to be inconsistent, summer up, summer down, up, down. You want to be nice, steady, good number of reviews in an upper direction.

Okay.

And, and I would just add that from a metric side right now, like, we, we are still in the Infant stage of understanding, except for I think it was— wasn't it Claude that just accidentally released some of its backend structure that came out yesterday anyways? But people were finally able to see in the backend of Claude because of an accident of them releasing some information they shouldn't have. But truthfully, like how you rank on AI other than all of the things we've talked about today, like to measure your current ranking on AI, super tough, no matter what people say right now. All of the highly intelligent platforms that we use for metrics, watching SEO for all of the different things, they're all very rudimentary right now. So don't expect your, you know, your marketing consultant to be able to authoritatively tell you where you're ranking on AI at this point. Again, it's Jeff, why should a small business owner—

what should they do to first adapt to all of this?

First off, if they're not already thinking into and using AI, pull your head out of the sand. What were you thinking? I meant, it's— there's a lot to it, but go after the low-hanging fruit. Use where it can help you with speed to lead. Don't miss calls. Be able to get responses back. quickly. Use them to help you tailor your content, tune your content. Think of the questions people are asking and answers. Use it to draft content if you don't like writing content. There's a whole lot of things that can be done and improved with AI. And then, you know, build it into your follow-up systems, your lead nurturing, just leverage the heck out of it as a tool with your authenticity and human in the loop.

Ian, last question for you. What's the big takeaway for small businesses in 2026 about all this?

Yeah, I think it's that, again, it goes back to who you're trying to attract. So customers are still searching for you on Google, but they're also asking the AI searches, right? Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, some of the others about local businesses. They're asking about common questions. So you need to be doing the right things to help you show up on Google and on those AI searches. And then the question isn't just, do I rank? It's also, does AI recommend me as a business?

Okay. All right. So, you know, for our listeners, if you're wondering how you're showing up in AI search, and again, as Ian said, it's still, you know, there's a lot of mystery here and a lot of unpredictability in the results that we're getting from AI search. But if you want to find out, reach out to any of our guides and we can kind of help you you understand if you are showing up in AI search and what you might, you know, to help you develop a roadmap to do that. So I think it's super important. It's, again, it's not a replacement, it's an addition. Think of all of the stuff that AI is bringing to us. And I'll just say this, even though it is an addition for a lot of extra things with AI, powered by really smart people who know what to do and how to use it for marketing purposes, it— you actually can accommodate— you can accomplish almost the same things with not too much more effort or investment. Um, not categorical, some things are going to take a lot more time, uh, but it's an exciting time, it's a scary time. But it's a time that you have to take action and you can't sit on, sit on the sidelines. So with that, Ian, I'm going to let you take us out.

Sure.

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts, to the marketing guides for the controversy, for the passion, uh, and thank you to our listeners and viewers for joining us today on this really important topic and very timely topic. And thank you, um, and please subscribe, smash the subscribe button. And I only say smash because Ken likes to— there we go. Thank you, Ken. I was waiting for that. And, uh, join us next week when we cover a brand new topic. We'll talk to you then. Keep calm and market on.

Navigating the AI Revolution: Your Small Business Survival Guide for 2026

The marketing landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the epicenter. Far from being a futuristic concept, AI is rapidly becoming the foundational infrastructure of modern business. Ignoring it is no longer an option; it's a direct path to being outmaneuvered by competitors. This guide, inspired by insights from the "Marketing Guides for Small Businesses" podcast, breaks down the biggest AI trends and what you, as a business owner, absolutely need to know to thrive in 2026 and beyond.

The AI Misconception: "I Don't Need AI Yet"

One of the most dangerous misconceptions small business owners hold is that AI is something to worry about later. The reality? Adoption is happening at lightning speed. AI isn't just a tool; it's evolving into an operating system for your business. From drafting content and responding to leads to qualifying prospects and optimizing campaigns, AI is already streamlining operations. Businesses built on AI infrastructure will simply have an insurmountable advantage over those who don't.

Where Are Your Customers Searching? Google Still Dominates, But AI is Rising

While it's tempting to believe that all local searches are migrating to nascent AI platforms, the data tells a different story. Over 85% of local searches still occur on Google. However, AI-driven searches are steadily increasing on Google and through dedicated AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. This means you need to be visible where your customers are looking, which now includes a dual focus on traditional search engine optimization (SEO) and the emerging field of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).

Beyond ChatGPT: Understanding the Power of AI Agents

AI is far more than just a content generator. The real game-changer is "agentic AI." Think of AI agents as sophisticated workflows that integrate multiple tools and platforms to accomplish specific tasks. These agents can handle everything from answering phones and conversing with customers to scheduling appointments and managing complex research. They are designed to implement specific job functions, significantly reducing the need for extensive human effort and freeing up your team to focus on higher-value activities.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): The New Frontier of Distribution

While SEO focuses on getting your content found, AEO is about getting your content chosen by AI platforms. AI search engines don't crawl the web in the same way Google does. Instead, they seek authoritative content from trusted sources, often outside of your direct website. This is where distribution for AEO becomes critical.

• •Structured Data is Key: Implementing schema markup helps AI understand and trust your content.
• •Beyond Your Website: Content needs to appear on authoritative platforms beyond your owned properties. This includes press releases, mentions on high-authority sites, and even video content on platforms like YouTube.
• •Brand Mentions Matter: Even without direct backlinks, brand mentions on reputable, uncontrolled platforms are increasingly valuable for AI.

Speed to Lead: AI as Your 24/7 Answering Service

In today's fast-paced world, the "speed to lead" is paramount. AI-powered chatbots and text messaging provide instant engagement, ensuring you never miss a potential customer due to unavailability. AI can:

• •Engage Prospects Immediately: Answer questions, provide information, and guide users down the sales funnel.
• •Personalize Communication: Reference CRM data and past interactions for tailored conversations.
• •Reduce Friction: Streamline data collection through conversational interfaces.
• •Filter Out Noise: AI can even filter out unwanted calls, allowing you to focus on genuine leads.

Personalization at Scale: Connecting with Your Audience

Personalization has always been a cornerstone of effective marketing, and AI is taking it to an unprecedented level. AI embedded in CRM and marketing automation systems allows for intelligent segmentation and pattern recognition in buyer behavior. This means moving beyond simple name salutations to:

• •Smart Tagging: Segmenting contacts based on specific interests (e.g., dental implants, Invisalign).
• •Tailored Communication: Delivering messages that resonate with individual needs and pain points.
• •One-to-One Conversations: Engaging with customers at scale in a way that feels deeply personal.
• •Predictive Sending: Email platforms can now send messages at the optimal time for each individual recipient.

Multi-Format Content: Embracing Video and Beyond

While written content remains vital, the dominance of video is undeniable. People prefer watching videos, and AI is increasingly capable of understanding and processing video, audio, and images, not just text.

• •Video's Rise: Short-form video, in particular, is driving engagement on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
• •Discoverability: Video content can be a powerful driver for initiating the buyer's journey, especially when traditional Google rankings are challenging.
• •Don't Abandon the Classics: While embracing new formats, don't neglect established methods like written content, website SEO, and page load speed. Multi-format content distribution across various platforms builds brand mentions, trust, and authority.

Authenticity: Your Competitive Differentiator in the Age of AI

With the ease of generating content with AI, authenticity is becoming a crucial competitive differentiator. AI tools trained on similar data can produce generic content, leading to a "mediocre middle." To stand out:

• •Inject Personality: Use your unique voice, personal experiences, and specific advice.
• •Human Oversight: Implement a "human-in-the-loop" approach. Review and refine AI-generated content for accuracy, improvements, and to prevent misinformation.
• •EEAT is Paramount: Authenticity is intrinsically linked to Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trust.

Owned Content: The Foundation of Your Online Presence

In the AI-driven world, your website is more critical than ever. Google and AI models pull information from primary sources, and your website is your owned property.

• •Maximize Website Content: Detail your service areas, products/services, ideal customers, and industries served.
• •Essential Content Types: Blogs, FAQs, service pages, location pages, and schema are vital for AI.
• •Data is King: Search engines and AI need data to understand your business. If you don't provide it on your website, no one else will.

Key Metrics in an AI-Driven World

The metrics that matter are evolving. While clicks, impressions, and traffic are still relevant, the focus is shifting towards:

• •Visibility in AI Answers: Being featured in AI-generated responses.
• •Brand Authority and Trust Signals: Reviews, mentions, and overall reputation.
• •Review Velocity: The frequency and consistency of new reviews.
• •Speed to Lead: How quickly you engage with potential customers.

Your Action Plan for 2026

The AI revolution is here, and it's an exciting, albeit sometimes daunting, time. The key is action, not inaction.

1. 1.Embrace AI: Start with low-hanging fruit like improving speed to lead, quick responses, and content drafting.
2. 2.Integrate AI: Leverage AI as a tool to enhance your existing systems, always with authenticity and human oversight.
3. 3.Optimize for Both: Ensure your business is visible on both traditional Google searches and emerging AI search platforms.
4. 4.Build Your Owned Assets: Maximize the content and authority of your website.
5. 5.Stay Authentic: Inject your unique voice and expertise into all your marketing efforts.

The future of marketing is intelligent, personalized, and requires a strategic blend of established practices and cutting-edge AI. By understanding these trends and taking proactive steps, your small business can not only survive but thrive in the AI-driven landscape of 2026.